


I'm Far Too Obvious (This Time)

by hawkeblocke



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comes Back Wrong, Dark!Marco, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, I'm so sorry, M/M, Reincarnation, Self-Harm, psychological abuse, this is why i can't have nice things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:10:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2127969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeblocke/pseuds/hawkeblocke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Marco said in the beginning that he had been brought back for a reason. Jean's convinced that that reason is to torture him with the ghost of a boy that he knew.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Far Too Obvious (This Time)

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty folks strap in and grab a box of tissues we're going for a ride.
> 
> Firstly, I'd like you to acknowledge the tags (emotional abuse, self harm, dark!Marco, psychological abuse) and know that this is not a nice fic. I'd like to stress the fact that I've explored some pretty dark and troublesome themes, including dark!Marco and if this isn't your thing, or it makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you turn back now. 
> 
> Secondly, I'd like to point out my special nerd butt friend, [all-hail-hanji](http://all-hail-hanji.tumblr.com)  
> , and my equally special precious angel friend, [ramenlover](http://ramenlover14.tumblr.com)  
> , where without either of them I wouldn't have been able to complete this. I would have been on my floor crying without you guys. Seriously. I'd also like to add that [dancho-ing](http://dancho-ing.tumblr.com) is making some wicked awesome fanart that made me cry.
> 
> Thirdly. Everything I've written was not intended to offend or romanticize any of the themes I have used. If you have a concern, or you feel that that's what I've done here, please, please, _please_ let me know. I thrive on helpful feedback of any kind and it is not my aim to make you uncomfortable. Tell me what I did wrong or what I did right, show me how I can improve and portray these things in a more appropriate manner. I really appreciate it, I promise.
> 
> Lastly, I'm sorry. I'm truly, deeply, 200% sorry. This hurt me too.

"Marco?" His voice is cracking, but the silhouette is familiar and emotion threatens to choke him. He can't breathe but for small, ragged little gasps as he stumbles forward toward that shape.

_Something's wrong,_ a voice inside him warns. The boy hasn't turned to face him. _You saw him dead. That's not him. Something's wrong._ the voice tells him insistently. Jean lets out a choked sob.

The tall figure turns slowly, squinting, bloody, bruised, clothes soaked in equal parts red and pink from sweat and blood. His face is smeared and black with soot, but if Jean looks hard enough he can see the hint of freckles. He swallows, meets Marco's searching eyes. _Something's wrong._ the voice reminds him, but then Marco's looking at him and he's so relieved and he's calling his name and his steps hurry him over to where Jean's collapsed.

He can't stand. Can't move but to curl into himself, can't breathe if it isn't gasping sobs.

Marco, Marco. _Something's wrong!_ it shrieks.

Marco kneels in front of him, breath as shaky as Jean's entire body feels. And when Marco holds him his skin crawls.

Marco, Marco, Marco, _Marco_.

=

Marco is confined to a spare bed while he recovers. His right side is a little lame, that side of his face heavily damaged, red and ugly and raw but Marco doesn't seem perturbed by it. He can't see out of that eye. He doesn't claim to be in pain.

They have questions.

He remembers dying.

Marco is subdued as he tells them how he remembers an explosion, being tossed against a wall. Jean can tell he's a little troubled by his unheroic death, but the freckled boy perks up again in an instant, and meets the blond's eyes briefly. "But I was brought back for a purpose," Marco says, smiling. There's something off about it, Jean notices it but he can't place what it is, but it's there and it won't leave him alone. "I can feel it."

When Marco is up and moving again it's like nothing's changed. He doesn't walk with a limp like they thought he would, but the damage to his face is a constant reminder to Jean that he's come back from the dead. And that is a constant reminder that something is off, like when he came back, he left something behind.

As the days pass it gets easier and easier to forget that. Except when Marco smiles. It's so practiced and it doesn't quite reach his eyes the way it used to. And when he thinks no one is looking and Jean can swear that he looks bored, tired… hungry. And that's off, too.

But when Marco leans into him it doesn't make his skin crawl anymore.

So he thinks that maybe, something's bothering him, and that if he can talk about it, he can bounce back. Jean thinks it's worth a shot, so he tries.

"Hey… Marco, you alright?"

Marco looks puzzled, brow furrowed slightly like he doesn't understand the question or why he's being asked it. "Of course, Jean, why wouldn't I be?" He gets up to leave, but Jean beats him to the door to the barracks and bars his path and now he knows that something is off, because that's something Marco would never do, not to Jean.

"Something's up, man," He tries to keep his doubts to himself, but he remembers that voice, the way his skin had crawled when Marco hugged him and what he doesn't doubt is some of that seeping into his voice. Jean swallows and continues anyway. "And I won't let you leave until I find out."

Marco sighs and looks down, running a hand through his hair. "I was wondering when you'd notice," his voice is off. It's tired and dark in a way that stops Jean's heart. There's a sharpness to it that doesn't belong there, and when Marco looks up there's a smile that doesn't belong either.

"You're not Marco." He's known it for a while. Since the day he came back, he just didn't want to believe it, and it became so easy to lie to himself.

"Of course I'm Marco," he's dangerously close, towering over Jean in a way that he's never done before, backing him up until Jean's trapped between the door and his body, arms caging him in to make it clear that there is no possible retreat. The look Marco gives him speaks volumes, and it's wrong. It's all. Wrong.

"You're not Marco," Jean says again, and his voice trembles just slightly and he hates himself for it.

"I'm the Marco he's always wanted to be." He's closer to growling than actually speaking, all hints of warmth having left the instant he turned that cruel smile on Jean. He reaches to brush his cheek with a knuckle of his scarred hand. "'Someone that Jean could love,' that's what he wanted." He purrs. Jean's blood runs cold.

It must have shown on his face, because Marco's smiling again, that cruel, twist of his mouth that says he _knows_. "That's right, Jean, you made me this way."

Jean tries to shake his head, to deny it, to say it isn't true, but suddenly Marco's hand is gripping his jaw and keeping his head still, forcing him to meet the gaze that leaves him paralyzed. He feels the tears begin to sting his eyes as the words sink in, stabbing at his heart and threatening to suffocate him. _Your fault,_ he can't escape Marco's voice, not even in his head.

"Shhh," Marco catches a tear just as it rolls down Jean's cheek, the grip on his jaw tight enough to bruise. "We're just getting started."

He's pushed to the side roughly, nearly losing his balance as Marco wrenches the door open. His heart is beating, trying to break his ribcage as he rights himself and leans on the wall he's found himself against.

Jean doesn't trust himself to cry until he hears the door latch, but when he does, he sinks to the floor and retreats into himself. He bites into his hand to muffle his sobs, bringing his knees up against his chest to hide his face. 

_Your fault._ Marco's voice tells him, and if Jean bites down harder he doesn't notice until he tastes the blood.

=

"Oh my God, Jean," he sounds so concerned. It doesn't fool Jean, he thinks Marco knows it, too. "What happened to your hand?"

The look Marco shoots him when they're not looking is anything but concerned. It makes Jean's gut twist uncomfortably, but he hides behind his mask diligently. "I, uh. I fell, it's nothing." Marco lets him push him away when the freckled boy tries to examine it, but Jean knows he'll pay for it later.

That later comes sooner than expected.

Marco pulls him into the first secluded corner he can find, which happens to be an empty stable. The air reeks of horse shit, but Jean's first concern is in the way Marco is pressing up against his back and holding him to his chest as he yanks his sleeve up. He tsks at what he finds there. "I told you, Jean, didn't I? We're just getting started. Don't break so easily on me."

He doesn't know what possesses him to say it, but he regrets it as soon as it comes out of his mouth. "You fucking _bastard._ "

When Marco's body goes stiff behind him Jean's heart stops. His breath is hot in his ear, but all it manages to do is make him feel colder. "I like fire, Jean. But I can't let you get away with it."

"M-Marco, I'm sorr-" he doesn't get to finish his plea before he's pushed up against the far side of the stall they occupy, knocking out the air in his chest. Jean sucks in a pained hiss, his arm twisted behind his back so roughly he's actually afraid Marco might dislocate his shoulder. He squeezes his eyes shut against white hot tears.

"Jean, Jean, Jean. Do you really hate yourself so much?" Marco speaks into his ear, so sickly sweet it makes Jean want to vomit. "What do you accomplish, with this?" He pulls back to run his free hand over the red marks along Jean's arm. He couldn't bring himself to draw blood, not like the first time, but the pain had given himself something to focus on. "And to think I thought so highly of you. I'm disappointed." 

"Marco," Jean croaks, fighting tears. He will not cry. He will not cry again. "Marco, come back. I'm sorry, I-" _I loved you,_ he wants to say it. He wants to tell him, but that tiny voice makes him swallow his words. "Come back, please come back." He hates how he sounds pathetically close to begging.

"Oh, Jean." Marco murmurs after a pause. He runs a hand up his arm in what would have been a soothing gesture. "I am back, and better than I ever was." Jean can think of many good arguments against that, but he doesn't get to voice any of them, because Marco's leading him into a kiss. It is nothing like he imagined kissing Marco would feel like, and it isn't a good thing.

=

Here's the inevitable truth: Jean loves Marco. Has loved him from the beginning. It just took until after he died for Jean to realize it, and after he came back to realize it was too late.

So as the next few days pass without incident Jean is both relieved and heartbroken, watching the Marco he remembers being played by a Marco that shouldn't exist. Relieved, because he's still nursing bruises on his face and arm, and his shoulder hasn't really stopped being sore. Heartbroken, because, well.

His laugh is familiar and wrong. The way he smiles is empty. The more Jean looks in his dead eye the more he imagines he can see his Marco trapped there, watching some twisted part of himself laugh and smile with his friends and he has to swallow around the lump that forms in his throat. 

It's when they're alone that this boy that calls himself Marco doesn't try to hide. When he lets go and turns kind, empty smiles into wicked twists of his mouth.

Marco said in the beginning that he had been brought back for a reason. Jean's convinced that that reason is to torture him with the ghost of a boy that he knew.

"Do you hate yourself, Jean?"

Jean doesn't look up. It's what Marco wants, to see the light he's burnt out in him. His knees hurt from being on floor for so long, the belts that keep his arms behind his back are digging into skin and muscle and it stings and it hurts, but Jean keeps quiet when Marco tugs on one. "I asked you a question, Jean." The freckled boy says sharply. "Don't make me repeat it."

He'll ask it again in five minutes anyway. He always does. _Do you hate yourself?_ Marco had asked it when he tore Jean's shirt off. He had asked it again when he forced the blond to his knees and bound his hands. Jean always gives the same answer. Anything to make this go on faster.

"Yes." He swallows, digs his nails into his palm and squeezes his eyes shut. 

He hears rather than sees as Marco comes around to stand in front of him, his boots tapping in the floor below them. The slap he delivers nearly knocks Jean to the floor.

Jean yelps and struggles to right himself. He looks up to glare daggers at the boy standing above him, the stinging in his cheek fueling his rage. He loved Marco, he reminds himself.

_But this isn't Marco. And you hate him,_ he hates himself for that voice. Jean hates himself for letting this happen. For letting Marco die, for letting him come back. He hates Marco.

He hates Marco.

"Do you hate yourself, Jean?" Marco hisses, sharper. Marco kneels in front of him and pulls at his chin until Jean's forced to meet his eyes.

He hates Marco. "Yes." He almost chokes.

Another slap. Jean squeezes his eyes shut.

"Do you hate yourself?"

"Yes."

Again. "You're lying, Jean. I see it," Marco tsks, tracing his fingers down the heated, red skin of Jean's cheek. So softly, so deceiving. "I know you, Jean. You can't lie to me."

He sounds so much like his Marco it hurts his chest.

The freckled boy tuts and leans away, regarding Jean for a moment and it's the first time that he's seen this Marco look so uncertain about anything. Then that wicked twist of his mouth is back, and he goes back to tracing Jean's jaw idly. The other boy's skin itches at the contact. "I like you, so I'll let you in on a little secret." Cold, misleading eyes drift down to his lips and there's no mistaking the predatory gleam that comes with it, and it's all Jean can do to keep himself from quaking at the sight of it.

Marco leans in close, gripping the back of Jean's neck to make it clear that there's no escape, as if the leathers that bind his arms weren't clue enough. Jean is at Marco's mercy, and they both know it. It makes the anger and the hurt dance in confusing ways in his chest. 

"He was so scared when he died," Marco purrs into Jean's ear, so sweet and so soft he has to strain to hear the words, and he wishes he hadn't. "So pathetic, and all he wanted was you."

Marco stands, grinning and horrid and Jean has never wanted to kill someone more in his life. The thought makes him pale and sick. _You've only just got him back,_ Marco's voice says in protest, intruding his thoughts like a parasite. "Weak little Jean couldn't save him. I told him so, I told him I could help him, I could make him _better_. He gave himself over so easily after that."

He's learned a while ago that there isn't any use hiding from this Marco, he can see right through Jean as if he were made of glass, his emotions laid out bare for him to see. Marco in life knew him too well as it was, Marco after death uses it to his every advantage. "You know it, too, don't you? Sweet little Marco's in here with me," he taps his temple with the forefinger of his scarred hand. "And he's _screaming_ , just like I used too."

Something inside Jean snaps. He doesn't know how he finds the strength to get to his feet, but he does and he's screaming and he's charging at Marco with all he has, crashing into him with a force he doesn't know he had. It does little more than knock the other boy back, but it doesn't deter Jean in the slightest. 

_"You fucking bastard!"_ He screeches, throat raw. His knee connects with Marco's side. "GET OUT OF HIM, LET HIM GO!" There are tears on his cheeks, hot and cold and they burn but Jean doesn't stop until he has the other boy at his feet. His chest is heaving. It's hard to breathe, his head hurts, but Jean can't stop screaming. _"GET OUT OF HIM, YOU MONSTER!"_

Marco catches Jean's foot when he goes to kick him, pulling him down until the taller boy can straddle his waist. He shoves Jean's shoulders with a wicked laugh. "Jean, don't you get it?" It makes him sick to think that Marco's actually having fun with this. "I was already here. Your poor boy's been living with me his entire life."

Jean glares. His chest hurts. His arms ache and his shoulders pop from the weight pushing down on them but all there is for Jean is Marco and red.

Red. The color of blood. The color of fire. Of the scars on Marco's face that obscure the innocence that was one kept there. The color of _rage_ , burning rage. "I'm gonna fucking kill you," Jean hisses, and what scares him is that he actually means it.

"You don't have it in you," Marco leans back, looks down on him like he's suddenly bored and all it does is make the rage inside boil that much hotter. Jean wants to see fear. He wants to hear Marco beg for mercy, to see that evil light leave his eyes and leave them dull like his own. But most of all, Jean just wants to see him _dead_ , the way it should be.

"I'll fucking rip you apart," he finds himself saying. "I'll make you beg to die." The voice Jean hears is so calm, so matter of fact that he hardly believes that the words are coming from his mouth, but his lips are moving, and Marco's gone incredibly still above him. Then he smiles, and Jean doesn't give himself time to think about what it means.

"How do you know I won't take little Marco with me?" He hums, shifting so that he can pull something out from behind him. He notices the flash of cold metal, hard and unforgiving and unmistakable and with a twist of panic that shoots down his spine, Jean realizes that his arms are still firm behind his back. He doesn't realize he's struggling until Marco presses down on his shoulder to still him. 

"Where one goes," Marco says quietly, pressing the knife against a strap that binds Jean's chest, "the other will surely follow."

The leather splits easily under the blade, and Jean can feel the pressure that binds his arms loosen just slightly. Marco's eyes flash. "Do you really want to let Marco go, you selfish little prick?" Somehow the insult hurts worse than Jean could ever have imagined, coming from Marco, no matter how screwed and twisted he's become, because it's something that Marco would never say. The cold press of Marco's knife brings him back to reality. 

"Doesn't matter," Jean hisses back, trying desperately to keep his breathing steady. "I watched that body of yours burn once. I can do it again." It's a lie. He knows it. Marco knows it, too, judging by the grin on his face.

"Then prove it, Jean," another strap comes loose to the sharp edge of Marco's knife. "Prove me wrong."

The last strap falls and Jean feels his entire body shift without bothering to consult his mind. He's moving on autopilot, watching as he twists to throw Marco off of him. The handle of the knife is warm from Marco's palm, but Jean's makes it slick from his sweat.

Something registers dimly that Marco isn't fighting back. He wants to scream at him, wants him to fight back. Jean wants to see fear, but all he sees is a haze of red. Red. Blood. Red. Rage. _Red_. Tears. Screaming. Rage. Pain. Red. 

Marco laughs, wet, sickening. Jean's hands are shaking. "I was brought back for a reason, Jean," he coughs, spits red onto the ground beside him. 

Jean chokes on a wheezing breath. "It wasn't… I didn't… M-Ma… co," he can feel his face pull to match the sudden, sickening lurch in his heart. Jean can swear on his grave that he sees the shift in Marco's good eye, he can see the boy he fell in love with in there, but once again, it's wrong.

"Shhh," when Marco lifts a bloodied hand to catch Jean's face he clutches at it like his life depends on it.

And maybe it does.

**Author's Note:**

> The second and last part promises a happy ending. If you've lived past this, that is. I'm so sorry.


End file.
